Gene Chizik
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I think that has been the case, sure, but I assure you kids on both sides won't hesitate to hit the portal if they don't see the field early on next season. One of those kids being from my neck of the woods.
Given the football era in which they played, Jack Cummings, Junior Edge, Paul Miller
(maybe Ray Farris, Jr. and Mark Maye), and certainly in later years Darien Durant.
ACC had
All that said Sam's a stud. PFF ranked him the best rushing QB. Obviously his touch, quick release, accuracy - all that - even under immense pressure was amazing.
Slightly better protection and he wouldn't have had the negative yardage and he'd be somewhere in the heisman talk like Pitt's Pickett.
I think the w/l record would have been better if he threw the ball away more often. He put himself into third & forever too frequently. T
All that said Sam's a stud. PFF ranked him the best rushing QB. Obviously his touch, quick release, accuracy - all that - even under immense pressure was amazing.
Slightly better protection and he wouldn't have had the negative yardage and he'd be somewhere in the heisman talk like Pitt's Pickett.
Devil's advocate here
- True frosh RB Caleb Hood was getting carries very early before his injury.
- Nesbit was probably too skinny to block and we needed all the blocking help we could get
- Ty Murray got a little run the yr prior
On WRs the JJ Jones thing/sitting is a question mark, but Downs I kinda get considering we were trying to win games with Dazz.
For every sack Sam took holding the ball too long, he avoided 2+ to make a big play. Our offensive line was ranked 128 out of 130 teams this year. And it was just as bad last year. PFF ranked our line in the 100’s despite all the production. Our RB hit rate in the back field was atrocious. Mike, Javonte, and Sam excelled despite the line. I don’t think the line is without talent. But they are overweight (by design), weak, and misused as power blockers instead of zone.
The offense and play calls were designed for a line that could block. We didn’t have one and Lonto refused to adjust. The RPO is designed to freeze the defense. It didn’t. They didn’t respect the RPO because they doubled Downs and sold out fishing Sam. The line was a disaster and if changes aren’t made, Maye will get broken. I cannot substantiate it, but there are multiple rumors that both Sam and Maye’s dad were very upset with Longo and Searles this year.
Caleb looks slow and too big. I’m sure he will improve, but he’s still mist a sophomore coming off injuries. Nesbit was needed in the passing game but we didn’t use him. Jones looked far better than Olsen.
If not for injuries, terrible OL and recievers that dropped as many balls as they caught, Mark Maye would be right up at or near the top.
I thought you were talking about Sam until you said Mark.
Passing
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| Year | School | Conf | Class | Pos | G | Cmp | Att | Pct | Yds | Y/A | AY/A | TD | Int | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passing | ||||||||||||||
| 1984 | North Carolina | ACC | QB | 11 | 10 | 22 | 45.5 | 93 | 4.2 | 3.1 | 1 | 1 | 86.9 | |
| 1986 | North Carolina | ACC | QB | 11 | 110 | 176 | 62.5 | 1401 | 8.0 | 7.6 | 10 | 6 | 141.3 | |
| 1987 | North Carolina | ACC | QB | 11 | 143 | 270 | 53.0 | 1965 | 7.3 | 5.4 | 9 | 15 | 114.0 | |
| Career | North Carolina | 263 | 468 | 56.2 | 3459 | 7.4 | 6.1 | 20 | 22 | 123.0 |
I'm not saying your logic isn't sound, but you'd think they'd have figured that out by about halftime of the VT game.
Someone on the offensive side of the ball needs a guy check. Downs was a weapon to be used his freshman year. He’s that good. If anything, it was the best time to work him in more because we had so many other weapons. Jones and Nesbit getting so few reps is criminal. Most damning is not figuring out that Brooks might be your best back until the State game.
My theory is that Brooks can't catch a cold. True Frosh Caleb Hood was getting reps before him, DJ Jones too - plus all the guys the prior X years.
Looking back thru stats Brooks has zero receptions. Anyone recall if we've ever attempted to throw the ball to him?
Your theory is wrong. We rarely throw the ball to WRs. It’s not a staple of Longo’s offense. Chandler was known as a threat out of rhe backfield to catch the ball and was criminally underused in the passing game. Brooks has zero catches because before the State game, he had like 10 rushing attempts. It’s just another in a long line of gaffes from the staff.
Have you heard Brooks is a decent receiving threat in practices? Yes, Longo has too few play-calls, but in 2020 Javonte and Carter each had 25 catches, they were the 3rd and 4th leader pass-catchers on the team (ahead of Walston, Khafre, Simmons, Beau, Downs, Groves, Green). Sure Dazz/Dyami dominated, but Longo does throw to the RBs occasionally.
DJ Jones was our back up and had 12 receptions all year. That doesn’t tell me he’s a pass catcher.
He had 60 rushes, 12 receptions. That 5-1 ratio actually looks like the try to utilize him as receiver a bit.
For reference TJ Logan's sr yr was 120 rush, 29 receptions and I thought we threw to him a good amount.
OR Gio with 184 rushes, 47 catches.
You seem to see the many huge problems across the Mack staff the way I do. If I had my way, Searles, Porter, and Galloway would be replaced, along with Thigpen and Cross and perhaps Longo. Chizik and Warren could help Mack make wise choices.
If the remaining staff coaches this Spring and next fall as they have to this point, then next year will disappoint as well. It might not be as bad, but it won't turn out as well as it should have with the roster we have.
Mack 2.0 is dying on the vine. I hope he knows when to pull the plug. He’s done what he needed to with recruiting, fan engagement, fund raising, and university support. I think he cut bait on Bateman too soon and is more focused on winning that building a super strong foundation for football. That’s his ego. Setting it aside, he could have gone all in at a full rebuild fixing the foundation and structure while leaving a beautiful shell for the next coach.
That’s not gonna happen now. I suspect this past recruiting class will be our best. Mack can’t sell hope anymore and I don’t see us winning more than 7 games next year. Chiz fixes some problems but not all. Per advanced metrics, the offense fell from 7th to 22nd year over year. That’s a crazy huge drop. And I see it getting worse next year. Even if we improve to a top 50 defense, that’s still 24 ppg. We averaged 21 ppg on offense in losses.
I don't understand the entire "bring back the old coaches" philosophy on any level.
It would really suck to know that potentially good coaches simply don't want the job at UNC. That makes even less sense to me. A flagship school in a major conference, with a very illustrious basketball pedigree, and some football stars here and there? Not to mention, a pretty fertile ground for recruiting in the 3 states around it. Seems like an aspiring coach would love to make their mark in Chapel Hill.
A coach that is considered "up and coming" would be willing to come because it's a P5 job. Those types of guys are almost always a swing and miss. You just have to take your chances if that's your route. Established coaches look at history and see UNC is where coaches go to die. I also think the way Butch was treated hurt our image when it comes to attracting coaches.
Loved Butch. I was working with a local ESPN Radio station at the time and went to Pinehurst for the ACC Kick Off. Got a lot of good sound bites from Butch to use on our show and he got canned like 24-48 hours later. I'll never forget some media member nut job badgering Butch about the investigation. When we all walked out of the room, Butch gave that guy a stare down like I've never seen before. Side note from that day, Gary Hahn is a massive asshole and Jesse Palmer is an incredibly nice guy.
I'm not saying to bring him back, but if you see a company **** over their employees would you go there for a job when you have other choices?
@ticket2ride04 - what site are you looking at that says we had the 22nd offense this season? i'd be interested in looking at it.
That's one of those diving deeper stats. Longo just isn't as good as some think he is. He's not the worst out there, he's just ok. Probably good enough to win the coastal with a decent defense.Home | Football Outsiders
www.footballoutsiders.com
interesting and thanks. not a lot of info on how these were calculated but clearly pretty deep. 22nd is a dropoff but still not too bad considering what we lost the previous season. my guess is all the 3 and outs hurt us more than anything. i see they have our defense at #98. seems like a more obvious place to look for major improvement
I was being facetious. UNC seems to enjoy these encore/nostalgia coaching tenures!
It could be. For it to really bear fruit...
1. This has to be the right defensive staff, now. It has to be a rapid turnaround, with a big leap forward next year, paying off as a world beating top 10 type defense 2 and 3 years from now as these highly ranked recruits cycle through their junior and senior years. I think the talent is there and the staff could be good enough to get those type of results, especially in a relatively weak Coastal division.
2. The offense line needs a miracle. Clearly Searles is not getting it done, we have one super promising recruit, and basically nothing else going for this unit. Multiple guys would have to play way above their recruiting rankings, and we'd need a new OL coach to fix this IMO. That unit going from where they were last year to being good in 2 years seems extremely unlikely to me. Maybe it could be passable in a few years and really good by the time Rice is a Junior. I have a feeling he'll be the anchor as soon as he steps on campus.
3. Longo needs to rework the red zone play calling and develop his scheme to add more play calls, particularly focusing on drawing up stuff that can get the athletes the ball in open space. More quick timing routes, high-low crossing combos and screens would be the direction I would go. The RPO can be super effective at times, but it takes a ton of reps to time up the mesh and dial in the reads, and is something that tends to feel different with every running back. My guess is that Longo spends way too much time trying to dial in the RPO instead of expanding his play book.
Even the most optimistic outlook would be that we're still 2-3 years away from being really good, much less great. And that's assuming a lot of things go right. Not exactly what Carolina football is known for. I don't think Mack will last much longer than 3 years even if things are really going well. The most important thing is that he continues to recruit at a high level right up to the end.
Dre needs to focus on recruiting and studying how Warren coaches up the secondary. Warren needs to be in charge of the entire secondary, and also coaching up the linebackers on pass coverage.
It seems strange to be a play caller with such a limited set of options when it's so easy to just rip off other coordinators. We've had a lot of under utilized talent since he's been here. And as bad as Searles has been, Longo is his boss so ultimately the OL play still comes back to him.
most everyone struggles in the red zone to some degree. there's much less space and the defense doesn't have to worry about anything deep. where's the room for high/low crosses when you're inside the 10, where's the space when the DL/LB/S are all withing 8 yards of one another. when you're O line isn't good enough for the D to respect interior runs and your QB doesn't roll out you've eliminated a lot of plays. we haven't had a big possession type receiver in a while which eliminates more plays. address these issues and the redzone issues go away. i don't believe there's 10-15 more plays longo can add to help in the redzone. best redzone teams are the dual threat QB teams - and i know sam did a great job rushing this season but he's not a dual threat guy. i think maye and criswell are both more dual threat than sam (i just hope they're close to as good as sam in all the other areas)
I wouldn't necessarily go high-low in the red zone, but we could utilize more of that stuff between the 20's. Agreed about the OL. Especially if the OL is weak enough for teams to play zone and still shut down the running game. That's when you end up having no space at all to throw the ball into, and the timing routes/fades become less effective because you aren't getting man coverage on the outside. I do think Longo needs to open up the playbook in general, not just in the red zone.
As far as comparing running skills with Sam vs Maye, I think Maye has pretty good wheels when he's in open space but he's not going to make guys miss or bounce off of tacklers the way that Sam did. But I don't think that's really something you want your QB doing anyways. Sam just had a freakish level of durability.
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